“DO YOU WANT TO STAY here for a little bit?” I looked at Austin and for a second, I could see her in him, something around the eyes, about the shape of his mouth. We’d always be a mash up of our parents and that horrified me.

“No,” he sighed. “I don’t know. I need to figure my shit out. I can’t do that from your couch.”

“It’s cheaper than Barcelona,” I joked.

“I was thinking about staying with Martin.” His words punched me. A sucker punch.

“Martin?”

I was going to make him say his name.

“Kael.”

“Since when are you two friends like that?” I couldn’t even hide the hurt in my voice.

“I don’t know, a week or so.” He laughed. I couldn’t breathe. “He’s been at Mendoza’s a lot.”

“Seriously?”

I couldn’t believe him.

“Look, I know something happened between you two and I know it ended. And that’s all I know. You told me it was nothing serious, that the shit with Dad was a mix-up, right?” he looked me straight in the eyes. Daring me to be honest.

That was a dare I wouldn’t take.
“So unless there’s more to it, more that you want to share with me, I don’t see the problem with me crashing with him. He’s the only one beside Mendoza who just chills at home and doesn’t bring chicks home every night. He doesn’t get in trouble.”

I wanted to throw up. I was relieved and devastated. It was a wretched combination.

“I’m not saying not to be friends with him.” I let out a breath of frustration. “I just …” I couldn’t think of a valid reason to tell Austin not to stay with Kael unless I wanted to tell him everything and that just wasn’t possible. He would hate all of them, maybe even Mendoza too.

It was enough that I hated them.

“If you don’t want me to, just say it. Just know that I can’t stay at Dad’s anymore, Kare. I can’t do it.”

I nodded. I understood needing to get away from our dad’s. He should stay at Kael’s house. Or Martin’s house. I liked to think of him as Martin, as the soldier who was just doing what he was told, who had offered to help my brother when he needed it. Not the man who I fell for, the man I fell too deeply and foolishly for.

I hadn’t seen him for a while, except when I scrolled through my Instagram, looking at the row of pictures of us.

He had changed me so much in such a short amount of time. The captions seemed so clever then, “Atlanta refuses to see us now,” I wrote under a picture of us in the car, a copy of Fifty Shades of Grey on the dashboard. Preparing for the upcoming movie, I was doing a reread, and it was even more exciting when I had a man who liked to get bossy in my bed when I closed the book. My tire blew right as we were leaving for our trip to Atlanta, the trip that never happened.

I had to shake it off, to actually shake my head, to stop the thought of Kael invading my mind. My hands were trembling. I thought I was over this.

“Dad’s calling me again,” Austin said, changing the subject.

“Are you going to answer?”

“No.”

A car drove by, a little boy in the backseat waved at us. Austin waved back, even smiling for the child.

“I got a job, too,” Austin told me a minute or so later. The sun was going down and the sky was changing colors around us.

“Really?” I pepped up for him. “That’s great news,” I told him. I meant it. He hadn’t had a job since he got fired from the drive-in. “Where is it?”

He hesitated. “It’s with Martin.”

“Of course it is.” I hung my head between my knees.

“He’s flipping that duplex, you know? The one he lives in. He’s paying me, Lawson, everyone to help him. I’m going to get more hours in than everyone else since they all have to work during the week. It’s just like tearing up carpet, shit like that.”

I needed to be happy for my brother, even if he was wrapping his life around the one person I was trying to detangle mine from.

“You two are a lot alike, you know that?” he said, a smile on his face. It was the first time he looked even close to happy since I walked up.

I shook my head. “That’s so not true.”

“Whatever you say, Karina.”

“How’s Katie?” I asked, flipping the attention back to him. I knew they were back together, I saw it on his Facebook. I guess her ex-boyfriend was out of the picture for now.

“Good. She’s good for me. She keeps me in line. And she wakes up early for school, so I go out less, you know?” He sounded so proud of himself and I let him be. We were two totally different humans even if we shared a womb.

“That’s good. I’m happy for you,” I said to him. I laid back on the porch, resting my head close to his. We were almost kids again.

“Thanks. I won’t bring him around if you don’t want me to, but he’s really helping me out.”

I stared at the sky, begging for the stars to come out and play. I wanted to know that I could count on them. I wanted to be certain of something.

“It’s fine. I’m seeing someone anyway.” The words slid from my tongue, devious as the lie itself.

“You are?” he asked.

“Yeah. I don’t want to talk about it,” I told Austin, knowing he would shy away from anything complicated when given the chance.

“Okay,” he agreed. “So you can’t be mad that he’s picking me up here like any minute.” He said the words fast, as if it would change their meaning.

“Austin,” I whined his name, twisted it around my tongue. “Fine. I’m going inside. You really need to get a car.”

“I will, now that I have a job.” He beamed, easing my pain a little.

“I’m proud of you, really. And see, you didn’t have to join the Army after all,” I joked. I knew he wouldn’t have gone through with it, no matter how much our dad tried to force it on him.

I heard the roar of Kael’s truck before I saw it. My body reacted at the same lightning speed as my mind and I had to actively force myself to go inside the house before he turned on my street.

Go, I told my feet.

Now, I told them.

But he was out of the truck and walking up the grass before I had moved even an inch. His eyes were hooded. He wore a baseball cap. I saw the confusion flashing across his face when I didn’t run.

I wish he knew I couldn’t help it. I wanted to move. I desperately wanted to move and run inside and hide under my covers and pretend it never happened.

“Karina.” Kael’s voice was punishment wrapped in silk.

I couldn’t speak through the lump in my throat. My tongue felt so heavy.

He looked the same and it surprised me. How had it only been a week since I had touched him? It didn’t seem possible. My body was a traitor, reminiscing over his warmth as he stood in the yard, too far away from me.

My brother stood up, covering my view of Kael for a second. Just what I needed to help me snap out of it.

“See you later,” I said to Austin, as casually as I could manage without looking at Kael. I deserved an Academy Award. I grabbed the screen door handle and didn’t look back again. Once inside, once I heard the click of the lock, I pressed my body against the front door. It was an attempt to stabilize myself, to keep myself upright. It didn’t work. I cried so hard that I slid down onto the floor. That’s where I stayed until Elodie came home from work and lured me up with pictures of her sonogram. Her little avocado was now the length of a banana. She was so happy that I cried again.